Day One: Arrival
When you arrive in Casablanca, the guide from Afrikan Wildlife Safaris will pick you at the airport and transfer you to the hotel. Dinner and overnight at Sofitel Hotel.
Day Two: Atlas Mountains
Have your breakfast and drive to the High Atlas Mountains, and the mountain resort of Oukaimeden, at this high altitude site, (2600m/8530ft). Our focus will be the Crimson-winged Finch, Levaillant’s Woodpecker, Red-billed and Yellow-billed Choughs, Atlas Wheatear, Moussier’s and Black Redstarts, Rock Bunting, Rock Sparrow, and White-throated Dipper. Raptors like Long-legged Buzzard and Booted Eagle are possible. Then we will descend to the lower part of the Ourika Valley for the night.
Day Three: Ourika Valley to Boumalne Dades
We will have morning breakfast and do birding near Ourika, then later drive to the High Atlas Mountains and into the high desert steppe. The night will be spent at the edge of the desert in the town of Boumalne Dades. Do some evening birding nearby to search for Desert and Red-rumped Wheatears, Little Owl, larks, and many more.
Day Four: Tagdilt Track to Erg Chebbi Dunes
On this day, we will drive to Tagdilt Track which crosses a vast expanse of desert and offers the best chances to view Thick-billed and Temminck’s Larks, and Red-rumped Wheatear. This is one of the most famous birding sites in all of Morocco, with other possibilities, including Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Cream-colored Courser, and Long-legged Buzzard. After our morning on the Tagdilt, we will head to the Erg Chebbi Dunes area. We’ll stop along the way to look for the Maghreb Wheatear and hulking Pharaoh Eagle Owl, and a visit to the scenic Todra Gorge will give us a chance to see Tristram’s Warbler. We’ll sleep at the edge of a monumental system of reddish Saharan dunes, a beautiful and stereotypical desert landscape.
Day Five: Erg Chebbi Area
The whole of this day will be spent birding Erg Chebbi dunes and surrounding gravel plains and palm oases. This is the best area to search for many Saharan specialties and northwestern Africa endemics which include Crowned and Spotted Sandgrouse, several larks like Greater Hoopoe and Bar-tailed, African Desert Warbler, Fulvous Chatterer, and the ghostly desert-adapted Desert Sparrow. Sometimes, with the assistance of local nomadic people, we manage to locate the incredibly cryptic Egyptian Nightjar during the day. Raptors include Lanner Falcon and a variety of migrants.
Day Six: Erg Chebbi area to Ouarzazate.
We will briefly do morning birding of Erg Chebbi before heading northwest to Ouarzazate. This regional center is famous as the place where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed. There is also a large reservoir nearby which can offer good birding during migration and the odd sight of waterbirds in the middle of the desert. The species expected include Great Crested Grebe, Eurasian Spoonbill, Ruddy Shelduck, Maghreb Crested Lark, and a variety of migrating shorebirds and passerines.
Day Seven: Ouarzazate to Agadir
Have your breakfast and head to the Sous Valley to Agadir on the coast of Morocco. Along the way, we will focus on species like Black-shouldered Kite and Western Orphean Warbler. We hope to have enough time for a late afternoon visit to the Oued Sous after arriving in Agadir. This coastal site features a bounty of shorebirds, waders, gulls, and terns. Two nights will be spent in Agadir, a large, modern, coastal city on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
Day Eight: Sous Massa National Park
This day will be spent at the coastal sites close to Agadir which are some of the most diverse sites for birds in the entire country. We will be birding around Oued Massa, but may also cover dunes, cliffs and riparian scrub in the national park too. We will be looking for shorebirds like Curlew Sandpiper, Bar-tailed Godwit, and Black-winged Stilt. The scrub and wetlands hosts Black-crowned Tchagra, Sardinian Warbler, and finches like Common Linnet and Eurasian Goldfinch. Another threatened species, the vulnerable Marbled Duck (Teal), can also be found here. We will go back to Agadir for a second night.
Day Nine: Agadir to Marrakech
Do final morning of birding after your breakfast around Oued Sous or perhaps north to Tamri, the stronghold of Northern Bald Ibis. Later we will drive back to the Marrakesh.
Day Ten: Fly out
Depending on your flight time, You may take a tour in Marrakech. The later transfer to the airport to catch your flight back home.